US executes first woman on federal death row in 67 years

Lisa Montgomery was sentenced to death for strangling a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb in 2004

An appeal court granted her a stay of execution on Tuesday on mental health grounds, but the Supreme Court overturned it

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Lisa Montgomery, who was convicted of killing a pregnant woman, was put to death by lethal injection after the Supreme Court overturned a stay of execution. Photo: AP

Published: 4:30pm, 13 Jan 2021Updated: 9:03pm, 13 Jan 2021

A Kansas woman was executed on Wednesday for strangling an expectant mother in Missouri and cutting the baby from her womb, becoming the first female inmate to be put to death by US federal authorities in nearly seven decades.

Lisa Montgomery, 52, was pronounced dead at 1.31am after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. She was the 11th prisoner to receive a lethal injection there since July when President Donald Trump, an ardent supporter of capital punishment, resumed federal executions following 17 years without one.

As a curtain was raised in the execution chamber, Montgomery looked momentarily bewildered as she glanced at journalists peering at her from behind thick glass. As the execution process began, a woman standing over Montgomery’s shoulder leaned over, gently removed Montgomery’s face mask and asked her if she had any last words. “No,” Montgomery responded in a quiet, muffled voice. She said nothing else.

She tapped her fingers nervously for several seconds, a heart-shaped tattoo on her thumb, showed no signs of distress, and quickly closed her eyes. As the lethal injection began, Montgomery kept licking her lips and gasped briefly as pentobarbital, a lethal drug, entered her body through IVs on both arms. A few minutes later, her midsection throbbed for a moment, but quickly stopped.

Montgomery lay on a gurney in the pale-green execution chamber, her glasses on and her greyish brown hair spilling over a green medical pillow. At 1.30am, an official in black gloves with a stethoscope walked into the room, listened to her heart and chest, then walked out. She was pronounced dead a minute later.